I’ve been listening to the Office Hours podcast recently, and Isaac, one of the hosts, made a quick reference in one of the episodes about his strategy on posting about frustrations he has on social media.
The strategy is this:
If you’re mad about something that you see someone doing or posting, (i.e. You hear a politician say something you don’t like, or a famous athlete does something you don’t support, or an actor/actress does something that angers you) instead of responding directly to what they do, figure out what it is about the thing that upsets you. What’s the foundational attitude or principle behind it that angers you? Go deeper than the specific situation. Figure out how you can have a lasting argument for all situations rather than only directing it toward the short-term argument.
This does two things:
1. It doesn’t give them free publicity. If you see a politician saying something that makes you furious and you post on all your social media outlets how angry you are with this person and what they said, all you do is give the person more publicity. You might think that you are tearing them down and getting a different viewpoint out there, but everyone already knows that there are people on both sides. All you’re doing is getting more people interested in what this person is doing.
2. It gives you a better perspective and a chance to cool down. By looking at the situation and trying to paint a bigger picture, you figure out what truly bothers you about the situation. You gain perspective on whether this is something that really does go against your core beliefs, or if it’s maybe just something that hits you the wrong way because you dislike the person.
Keeping with this political idea, let me give an example of what this might look like in real life:
Two individuals are in a political race. You already have your choice as to which candidate you will vote for, and you see a political ad where the opposing candidate attacks your candidate personally for something they did in the past. You are furious because you think that it’s untrue, so you immediately attack the opposing candidate with comments about things that they have done in the past. All true things and good points.
You have now given this candidate free publicity, and you haven’t discussed what truly bothered you about what happened.
What if instead, you see this ad with personal attacks against someone you support, and you figure out what it is that truly bothers you about it. Maybe it’s your frustration that humans seem to be willing to stoop to any level, even hurting others, to get their way. Maybe these facts were false, so your annoyance is the lying and lack of morals that humans have. Maybe it’s that people so often hold onto past mistakes of others, and don’t care to look at the person they are now.
Any one of these will result in much more valuable discussions on the subjects, and they get rid of unnecessary bias on both sides of the argument.
Stop reacting, start philosophizing.